And so the retreat begins, as predicted yesterday in Politico’s story about Democratic strategists nudging The One to walk back her comment and make it go away. Obama weighed in on this himself just a few minutes ago, saying he’s sure she would have “restated” what she said if she could do it again; Gibbs makes essentially the same point. Nice try, but their problem here is that she wasn’t speaking off the cuff at the time. It came in the course of a speech, something to which a federal judge would devote care in composing. Either she’s a sloppy writer, even on matters of great cultural sensitivity like race, or she meant exactly what she said. And somehow I find it hard to believe she’s a sloppy writer.

The first half of the clip is devoted to Gibbs ripping on Rush for comparing Sotomayor today to David Duke, an analogy at least as, ahem, useful to the GOP as Tancredo’s “Latino KKK” point yesterday. You’ll find the relevant bit from today’s show below as well. Click the image to watch.